West of Tomorrow – A Romance of Shifting Truths

Recently, someone asked me about West of Tomorrow, my first novel. I did what most writers have been told to do, which was to trot out my thirty second elevator pitch. About midway through, he stopped me with the question he really wanted answered, specifically: “will I like it and if so, why?”

It’s the dreaded question every author must face, at some point. Okay, maybe you’ve written a book. A fair response these days is: “so who hasn’t?” There were almost half a million titles released in English, last year. It may even be a good book. But can’t thousands of authors who published last year make the same claim? To be fair, I think the answer is yes. So. Why should you read West of Tomorrow? I thought you’d never ask…

West of Tomorrow is an intelligent, thought-provoking romance set in our time. It follows nine pivotal months in the life of Clay Conover as he deals with the search for love on the back side of middle age. In the wake of the near-simultaneous disintegration of his love life and career, Clay is confronted with a dwindling set of options and limited time in which to implement them. As happens so often in times of shifting paradigms and great change, he finds himself in position where he must reinvent himself, personally and professionally. On the professional level, he is in no position to retire.

While Clay has savings enough (he hopes) to get through a prolonged unemployment as he searches for a position commensurate with his skills and experience, it’s not inexhaustible. More importantly, he has past he must confront-and come to terms with-before he can move on to the future he would like to create. Along the way, Clay makes deals with some of the disquieting realities of the new millennium and the elusive questions of fulfillment and how much control we have over outcomes.

Above all, West of Tomorrow it is about finding of the phoenix in all of us when (as happens to most of us) we find ourselves standing on the edge of cliff, half an hour west of a future at once exciting and uncertain.

And why not? Can we finally @ long last leave all the gender stereotypes behind? If women can aspire to the Boardroom & venture in to combat (I’m okay with both, by the way) why can men not write about relationships? Just wondering out loud…your thoughts?